hope is a river

so I had yet another rehearsal yesterday with an old friend, and a few newer friends. As time has rolled by, I've become further and further removed from what is, or was the June Umbrella. Every new audition has made my heart more and more weary. Any time you audition someone you are accepting the fact that you will more likely than not have to tell them that they aren't what you are looking for. This is a process that I simply do not care for. It is a lot of fun to write music. It's a lot of fun to play music, but all this has made me look deeper...

Why do I want to keep TJU alive? Is it because of how much I love music? Is it because I define myself through my performing ventures? Is it because I am looking back at years and years of desire and failure and success and simply wouldn't want to address the need for change even if it was poking my bottom?

All those things are true. The fact is, I am sort of a control freak. I have absolutely no problem welcoming other people and their musical contributions, but there are prerequisites. Namely that those people are competent at their respective instruments, and that those people understand the music I play. Besides that, I don't want to work with people I don't get along with, or people that have excessively dysfunctional moral compasses.

I have auditioned lots of musicians in the recent months. Many of them have been more accomplished than I am as musicians. The thing I have most recently realized is that exceptional bands often evolve from the humble beginnings of beginners. People who hear beautiful melodies and rhythms, but just haven't yet learned how to communicate with their bandmates, and haven't learned how to express their ideas in time and with eloquence. I for one, am beyond the stage in my life when I have the patience to facilitate the growing process that such musicians require. I am to old and stubborn I guess, although I am a ripe 24.

The fact is that all day I sit in my studio and write music with a substantial amount of liberty, though there numerable technical and creative reasons why my music can suffer, if there is a way I want something done, I am happy and capable of doing it that way, myself.

I will confess, I am not the most devout instrumentalist in the world. Just today I retook a guitar part maybe 30 times so that it was perfect. I do feel that I can, after many years, function well in my 'niche,' but I would not be so proud as to say that I am elite. I certainly am not. Anything substantial that I accomplish in the world of music is simply a result of hard work and providence.

Long story short, the 24 hours following this most recent auditioned were rather emotionally turbulent for me. I had a deep realization that what I was doing was not working, and that whatever may be, something needed to change. Mourning it was. Funny, mourning is the best word that I believe described my songwriting in TJU. I guess for some reason I sometimes find solace in mourning. Perhaps I believe in it's empathetic power.

It's simple. I am fighting tooth and nail to do what I love. I feel a strong sense of responsibility to my role as a family man, and am aware that the clock is ticking. All I do right now is write music, talk with business/creative types, record music, breathe music, etc. I absolutely love it. I find it OVERWHELMINGLY fulfilling. I am beginning to see that my performing career is only a small part of that. Still, it is so close to who I am. Abandoning it literally feels like self compromise. It feels in a way like lying, leaving your spouse, or simply a cop out. I am simply not interested in this bull shit idea that 'reality' sets in and that we realize what we can and can't do. It's bullshit. The greater truth is that we must find the balance between heartily serving our dependants, and heartily (violently) attempting to excel at what GOD has given us to do.

The flip side, is that sometimes God gives us something, but it's not what we think it is. Sometimes God gives us something to do and we shape it to meet our needs. Sometimes we get so blindly obsessed with this self-contrived pursuit that we don't even have the emotional capacity to loosen our death grip.

The ultimate goal is rest. I mean spiritual rest. The kind of rest you find when you are surrounded by safety and security. It is similar to the rest you find when you feel as though another human being would die for you, such that you are completely disinterested in the potential of any looming danger. This is a rest that is only found in the presence of God. For me, I must find it within myself to rest. To release my death grip. To let go of my desperate desire for something that perhaps God doesn't want. There was a time in my life when I did not believe that such submission could be beneficial, as I did not believe in a God of Love. For each one of us, it is in our nature to resist and doubt God's love. Still, I and my music have come through many strange circumstances, and I am very near being able to say that should I submit it, God will indeed likely hand it right back to me as he has done in the past. If he does not, I will be okay. My commitment to music is no longer selfish. It would be better described as conviction. CONVICTION.

hope is a river. God grant us the strength to not tarry on the bank.